Lucky Minerals Inc (CVE:LKY) (OTCMKTS:LKMNF) (FRA:LKY1) said a drill program is expected to begin in July at its Fortuna project as it announced that 2021's fieldwork had begun at the property in southern Ecuador.
Initially, the work is focused at the El Garo prospect, the group said, where two geological teams have started collecting soil samples. Around 900 soil samples will be taken over an area of around 4.4 kilometres (km) by 2 km, with 275 taken so far. The remainder will be taken within around three to four weeks.
"Once all soils are assayed and a Geochem interpretation of these is completed, a hand-dug trench program will start. This work will be followed by ground geophysics, and subsequently, a drill program is expected in July," said Lucky in a statement.
Lucky Minerals is exploring its 100%-owned Fortuna gold and copper project in Ecuador, which consists of 12 contiguous exploration concessions covering 55,000 hectares. It sits on the same geological trend as other large discoveries in Ecuador, including Lundin Gold’s Fruta Del Norte project and Solgold’s Cascabel mining project.
Late on Tuesday, Lucky Minerals revealed that its partner, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. will not proceed to the next phase of the exclusivity agreement entered into on March 2, 2020. As part of the initial agreement, First Quantum will provide all the data they have generated while they worked on the Fortuna concessions 3,4,5 & 6.
In a statement, Lucky Minerals CEO, Francois Perron commented: "The high-quality work accomplished by First Quantum offers us significant insights into the potential of the property. Their conclusion from this work is that they did not see the potential for a large scale copper porphyry system they are interested in targeting. The surface mapping and geophysics undertaken is of great value and will be the basis of our future strategy with respect to those target areas.
"In particular recent review of data confirms the presence of the upper parts of a potential copper-gold porphyry system at the Emma prospect. Our work continues on the other gold prospects identified in 2020; El Garo and Sherman.
Shares added 6.25% in Toronto on Wednesday to C$0.085 each.
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